After admining a game for over 7 1/2 years, I have noted a trend that drives me crazy as an admin and player. xD No, it's not a trend regarding names, or PBs, or anything like that...

It's the trend regarding people who join games in groups.

I've noticed, without fail, that when a group of people who all know each other join a game together...they also play together and leave together, no matter how many warm welcomes they get in the introduction threads. Over the years, I've grown sort of wary when I see people join together that know each other and my snap prediction is usually along the lines of, "Alright, Rhi. You know what's gonna happen: they'll join, make some characters that have extensive histories that tie in with one another, do one or two closed threads together--and then vanish off the face of the game together, never once attempting to interact with any other players or characters."

Without fail, 99% of the time my prediction proves true.

Heck, sometimes it happens even when they do interact with other characters and players! They come in a group, and they vanish in a group.

Whyyyyy?

It drives me a little batty. It also comes across as very...insular behavior. When I join a game, even if I join it with a friend, the point of joining that game to begin with is to play with other people and get involved. If I wanted to just play exclusively with my friend, I could do that in private whenever I wanted! xD Sure, I'll want to do threads with my friend, too--that's understandable, and why shouldn't I be able to? But if you join a game, even with a friend--bloody well play that game!

And if my friend decided to leave the game for whatever reason, why would I feel like I have to? |:

Which brings me to another mini rant...

When you join a game: INTERACT. xD

The existing players can only toss so many bones. You have to offer some, too, as a new player, and be outgoing yourself. ^^ It's silly to be shy in an online medium where no one knows you and where you're totally anonymous. So--be outgoing. Don't wait for everything to come to you.

Alright. I'm done. :B

This happened on the old version of my own site once. As nice as it was to all of a sudden have five to seven more active people, it was the wrong kind of active. They ended up violating my rules and standards to such an extent that it angered me enough to close down the site for a few days so I could clean the place up.

I don't want to call myself or the members that I do have elitist, but I like sites where all the players at least have enough of a grip on the English language to write in paragraph form, with detail. I don't ask for too much and didn't even have a minimum, but it made my blood boil when I saw at least four different styles of role-playing in one thread (and I'm talking the basic kinds, like the *walks in* kind and the similar style that reads like a script) and said thread had such minimal effort that it reached four pages in a day or so. And these people were okay with that which drove me even more nuts. It means they didn't bother to even look at my rules or ask me anything about expectations, let alone look at any of the other threads there that respected the English language and the area being played in.

Edit: This is also the reason I can't stand the script format. I just had to tell somebody it's against the rules because writing in a paragraph is not hard.

Not to mention their biographies were nothing short of atrocious, and one of them, who typed like a script and didn't seem to know what a Shift key or punctuation was, thought they could get by with using anime characters when I specifically stated in the rules that all characters are required to be original.

In the end I had to chase them out, because, like I said, though trying not to be elitist, at the same time I didn't want my board to deteriorate into a cesspool of language slaughtery. My actions consisted of deleting things that went against the rules, like I said, in the rules, would be done. This turned out being like 90% of their posts. It was terrible and made me feel like a dictator, but the quality of my game was at stake and there wasn't anything else I could do at the time without shutting it down completely.

Sorry about my rant being a bit of a diversion, but I've never had anywhere to vent about that before and I suppose it's a long, drawn-out way of saying I too am wary of those who travel in groups.

True! Once, I had a girl join, and you know, I thought it was only her. Apparently, she liked my forum so much, she told her BFF. Her BFF joins, but doesn't interact too much. But they were insanely close, you know, the clique close :/ Other people joined, and about three of them were welcomed into their small group. Sure, they were nice and dandy to me, but that's because I was the Admin. Even then, sometimes I felt like they felt much more comfortable when I wasn't around O_o

Anyways, yeah, I've noticed the trend. I've never actually done the whole group thing, mostly because I don't understand why people do it anyways. If you are referring your friend, okie dokie, that's one thing. But coming in like a stampede, then leaving as a stampede is beyond me.

I still don't know why people don't interact, or why people just leave suddenly. O_O I guess I'm one of those types of people who really like to get involved, so when I see others being shy, my mind draws a blank.

Well I have joined and left games with friends. But not because of sudden disappearance, but usually because problems that effected the game as a whole and ruined the experience for us. However when I do join with friends, I try to interact with the community as a whole. Buuut, if I'm being ignored on an rpg and if I like the rpg, I will invite my friends to play so I will stay on the game.

I also do that if I hold the game in high esteem too/whether my friend will like the game. It's not always a bad thing, it can be a really positive thing as well. :D

My friends usually know what kind of things I would enjoy in an rpg. Whether it's medieval fantasy, historical, etc if I like it/potentially like it they will show me.

But the most amount of people I have joined a site with was about three. So that's not really much of a horde. ;)